Teenagers - DH is driving DD away. How can I stop it?

[pellegrino]

DH is slowly losing DD1. She is in Y8, nearly 13, and she is very teenagery - we've had various issues with in the past few months, but nothing out of the ordinary for her age, i don't think.

DH does not have the first clue how to handle her. He has ridiculous rows with her about relatively trivial matters, eg last night over make up - he told her that she shouldn't wear it, said it would give her skin cancer, and when she argued back he resorted to throwing insults at her (stupid little girl, ignorant etc). She pretended not to care by laughing but later in bed she was crushed.

I tried to talk about it but he will not back down. I have tried to explain that with teenagers it is all about listening, talking and compromise and that dictating a long list of don'ts just drives them to secrecy and dishonesty.

His response was to throw in the towel. Said "so you deal with her when she goes off the rails, I can't do it".

What can I do? It's horrible watching him destroy his relationship with her and DD2 and DS are suffering for it too

It's caused a huge rift between me and DH too

We argue a lot about her. We have totally different approaches and it's not helping anyone

Sounds as if he is having huge problems accepting that she is growing up and resorting to childish tantrums.

He doesn't really believe that make-up gives you skin cancer does he? Because if he does then I fear for his intelligence and your future!

Ask him does he want to be her enemy or her friend? If he carries on the way he is he will be her enemy. If he calms down he can be her friend while still being her father. I don't believe that parents need to be their children's friend per se but she needs firm, friendly loving guidance not irrational rows and name-calling. If he carries on she will lose all respect for him.

What about buying this? and giving it to him to read. Then sit down with him and discuss rules you can set up now i.e how old to wear make-up etc. He has to be prepared to listen to you both and compromise.

Can't offer any advice but can completely sympathise with you. My Dh as completely destroyed any relationship with our dcs because of his complete inability to talk to them and have a balanced discussion with them where they are allowed to put their point of view across. He just barks his opinion at them and tells them basically that he's right, they're wrong and if they don't like it they can move out. (dcs are 13, 19 and 21...eldest has sn and ds2 is due to go to uni later this year).
Dh then gets very upset that his dcs don't get him birthday cards etc. but fails to see that if he is so unreasonable with them what can he expect.
The sad thing is he's actually made things impossible for himself because even when he has a valid point or a perfectly reasonable request they just won't take any notice now. They just say "oh it's just Dad going off on one again". Like you this is causing problems between us as well. He believes we should present a united front and accuses me of undermining him. But I just can't back him up when I think what he is saying is unfair or unreasonable.
Sorry I have no answers but at least you know you're not alone!!

The irony is that he's not stupid (a doctor FGS!) he was just trying to scare her into not wearing make up.

She has precious little respect for him as it is - she called him a bad father last night and said she hated him.

I have suggested books (including the one you link to) but he is stubbornly unwilling to change or try to understand anything about her or teenagers in general.

So I will ask about enemy/friend. But he was brought up with an authoritarian mother and thinks that is the only way to handle wayward children is to shout and punish ("YOU will do as I SAY under MY ROOF" etc etc). He hated it, so I really don't get why he's not trying to do things differently.

Losingthewill - oh dear. I can see all that happening to us. Your DH and mine sound very similar - kids are always wrong, he is always right etc etc

Is it a self confidence issue I wonder? Not having the confidence to sit and discuss something in case (god forbid) the child happens to have a valid point and he is proved wrong?

This sounds like a phenomenon I came across years ago when doing management studies. I think it was in a Charles Handy book, though I cannot remember which one.

He was talking about the empathy and child rearing skills of various character types and he identifed professional males (doctors and lawyers in particular) as having very poor staff and child management skills. He said that this is due to the person being in a profession that gave them what he termed "position power". i.e. if a doctor or lawyer tells anyone anything, the listener (adult) will pay attention and take heed and generally not argue. This is because the doctor or lawyer is seen as an "expert" thus those personality types expect complete deference and cannot deal with any challenge to their authority.
Handy went on to say this is why professional males often have terrible relationships with their children as they just cannot cope with any form of challenge as all their life they have said their piece and been deferred to so, not only do they not have the skills to cope with persuading people to their view, they often cannot see why they should even TRY to use persuasion.

Harvard Business Review also did a piece on this called "why grade A managers make grade Z parents".

The only way round this is for him to see that some discussion, compromise and acceptance of views other than his own are necessary for him to maintain relationships with his children. I think he is so stuck in his learned behaviour patterns that he really can't see what he is doing.

God yes Miggsie, made worse at home by him having no good parenting model to replicate as his mother was so controlling.

I hope he is mulling this over at work today because I am going out tonight and he will be alone with the children...

"Is it a self confidence issue I wonder? Not having the confidence to sit and discuss something in case (god forbid) the child happens to have a valid point and he is proved wrong?"

You have a good point here I think. Dh's worse relationship by far is with our middle son. They are very alike and both very strong willed. In the past when they have 'discussed' anything ds2 has often had quite valid points of view but because dh doesn't agree he always resorts to the "it's my house so you'll do as I say" line with the "if you don't like it move out" line having been added as the dcs have got older.
It's interesting what you say about a role model because Dh's father was an awful husband and father who, although absent alot, was very much from the do as I say school of parenting. Whilest his mother was a complete doormat who just agreed with her husband for a quiet life.

Been thinking about this a little bit this afternoon. My Dad was a bit of the 'I am your father and you will do as I say" but thankfully my Mum softened him a lot. Her parents were very strict and she hated it.

I would talk to your DH a little bit about respect. Him presumably wanting his children to respect him as well as love him. Him presumably wanting you to respect him. And him wanting to be treated with respect. Well it is a two way street. You have to treat people with respect and at the moment he is not treating YOU with respect with how you would like to parent your children and he is not treating your DD with respect. Calling your DD those sorts of names and not being willing to enter into any sort of discussion will lead to her disrespecting him totally. He MUST see that.

Ask him if he wants her to simply obey him until she gets to a point when she doesn't have to and won't (in 3 or 4 years time, as the law stands in this country) or if he wants her to see why his advice is a good idea, and therefore listen to it all her life.

Definitely agree about the issue of respect - it is not to be taken for granted just because of the relationship father/son/daughter. It must be paid to be repaid.

I would also strongly warn him about consequences of his behaviour that may in future become irreversible. My younger sister heard many nasty things from our father when she was a teenager, the result of which is that he has no access to her three children (one of whom he used to be close to when they lived with my parents at the begining, my dad adores that boy) or her. She just doesn't want to know and I don't really blame her. Please make your husband see that he may be doing something he will regret bitterly and not be able to repair.

And she's not a stupid little girl if she has identified that he is a crap dad. He is being a crap dad to her.

Yes he is coldtits, which is why I kept out of it when they were arguing. I think that comment hit home quite hard.

He bangs on about respect, and every time I tell him that respect isn't a right but must be earned.

He says that wearing too much make up too young is the slippery slope to delinquancy. He probably feels terrified seeing her look so grown up (she is tall and could easily pass for 16 with make up) and wants his little girl back, or at least one who isn't growing and changing so quickly.

He lays all the blame squarely on her school, which we is in a very smart area and full of overindulged rich kids but is the only one that does her choice of option. He thinks her friends are a bad influence and he doesn't believe that it's just her age.

He is quite possibly right in that her friends are overindulged and a bad influence but he needs to see that he is just driving her towards them and towards their values rather than your family values.

My Dad hated the idea of me wearing make-up and from early on I was warned I would not be allowed it till I was 16. So at 16 I duly arrived downstairs one night wearing make-up. Was told to wash it off until Mum pointed out that the rule we had agreed was 16 and I was 16! And I was only wearing blue eyeliner and lipgloss (it was 1980!!).

I tend to agree with your DH that too much make-up at 13 is not a good look but she will want to wear it. He has to compromise. Agree his maximum and her bare minimum and meet in the middle.

Has he ever thought about the statistics? Ime all 13yos (of which I have one) are experimenting with make-up. Does he imagine that that will be a whole generation banged up in jail or on the game? Will there be the employment opportunities for that many call girls/petty criminals?

Or is it just possible that the majority of them could come out of it as relatively unscathed as our generation did out of rock-'n-roll? (another sure way to damnation according to the generation that went before).

I slathered myself in makeup at 13 - as a result, by the time I was 15 and 16 and therefore considered "fair game" by 17 and 18 year old lads, I didn't bother wandering about with a full face of slap all the time.

statistically, the girls most likely to go off the rails are the ones who have a shitty homelife. currently I'm guessing she doesn't have a shitty home life. If he is going to try to make it shitty, based on what is essentially, at her age, face pain - that's a problem he is causing.

I must admit my DH would hit the roof if DD was wearing make up at that age...but he would probably approach it a bit differently.

I suggest you try to get your DH to read a book on Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman to help with his interpersonal issues (it will help him in all areas not just relating to his children). Also, for your DD I'd highly recommend he/you/she read "Queen Bees and Wannabees" and then start a family discussion on peer pressure and why she feels she needs to wear a lot of make up and how to assert yourself as a teenage girl without falling into prescribed stereotypes...in a non accusing way!

Both books are available on Amazon.

Wearing make-up at 13 doesn't have to be about failure to assert yourself or falling into stereotypes. To dd it is a pleasurable and harmless way of experimenting with growing up.

I have never worn any make-up whatsoever, but I am aware that other women do and that they are not all helpless victims to stereotype just because they put on a bit of lipstick. So if this is something dd is going to want to do (after all, she doesn't have to be me), I'd rather she experimented in the safety of the home, so that when she is old enough to be put at some risk through the signals she sends, she will then have got some sort of control over it.

Exactly. To all of you. I'd rather she put the make up on here where we can monitor and sanction if necessary than she slope off to school bare-faced, diving into the toilets and emerging looking like a slapper for the day

I like the sound of the Queen Bees book for DD. And I'd love DH to read a few books (I have a couple), to learn about normal teenage behaviour, but he flatly refuses - another pride thing?. DD is far more emotionally intelligent than him! We talked about compromise (me and DD) and she was fine with it, we just need to get DH to negotiate with us. As it is I override him all the time which is v bad for everyone.

this is very interesting to me because I am very keen that DH learns some alternative ways to communicate with our boys that the ones he uses currently, before it is too late - for example he already just shouts louder when DS1 tries to put his view across, as he percieves it to be DS just arguing when he should just "do as he is told". I agree obedience is important, and DH is the adult, but DS one has the right to speak, and put his view across.

I think he needs to do the old "choose your battles" thing. With DD, it was a situation where I was fine with her wearing a little makeup (mascara, lippy maybe) if it was subtle. If it was obvious, then it got washed off. She got to wear makeup, I got veto power on the amount. It worked out okay that way. She was also told she could get her belly button pierced if she wanted, which shocked her. But not her lip or eyebrow. Reason, you may ask? Because in future, if she has to go to a job interview, the belly button ring won't show (and she better not be applying for any positions that require a bare belly! ), but the others would. She never did get her belly button pierced - not nearly so appealing when I wasn't arguing over it.

You all have FAR more sense than him!

Now how do I get him to listen and apply all these tactics, I wonder...?

Get him to read this thread?